Granada Hills Physician Sentenced to Three-Years in Prison for Medi-Cal Fraud

Attorney General Bill Lockyer today announced that Dr. Santiago Cadag of Granada Hills was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $390,000 for defrauding the state's Medi-Cal program.

Cadag, 63, was sentenced in Los Angeles Superior Court by Judge Lance A. Ito. A jury in January convicted Cadag of one count of grand theft and three counts of submitting false Medi-Cal claims.

Cadag has a medical practice at Sunset Family Medical Clinic in Hollywood. The Medi-Cal fraud convictions involved Cadag's work from 1993 to 1994 at the now-closed Amigo Medical Clinic in Long Beach.

Cadag was found guilty of using unlicenced medical assistants who posed as doctors to examine patients and billing Medi-Cal as though he had performed the exams himself. Cadag also billed Medi-Cal for antibiotics that were never provided and for examinations of so-called "ghost" patients who had not been to the clinic.

Cadag faces revocation of his license by the Medical Board of California. He had been on probation with the state medical board for a 1987 sexual assault on a student intern in his office.

The Medi-Cal fraud case was handled by state Deputy Attorney General David Haxton.